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Suspense Thriller Teens & Young Adult

Adam Falcon loved pranking people. It was like a daily job for him. Nothing was off-limits for Adam. He would prank his mother if it gave him pleasure. On April Fool’s Day, Adam became the king of pranks. He used his social media platform to film the most disturbing and elaborate pranks unknown to man. He loved showing off his tattooed muscles by flashing his naked body out in public in front of unsuspecting women, men and senior citizens. 


Each year on April Fool’s, Adam’s pranks would become more unsavory. From filming a fake car accident to faking his own suicide, Adam loved the thrill he got from fooling people. This April Fool’s Day was supposed to be particularly special for Adam. He planned to prank his roommate’s girlfriend. It was something he had been planning to do all year and he wanted to do it on April Fool’s Day. Being a rich college kid meant that you can pay people to do things for you.


Adam paid a group of guys to kidnap his roommate. He wanted to film the kidnapping and also film a fake murder of his roommate. Adam wanted the men he paid to pretend that they were beating his best friend to death on camera. He planned to gag and blindfold his roommate so he couldn’t see what was going on, or say anything that would compromise his prank. 


Executing the perfect, fake torture and murder of his roommate, Patrick, was stage one. If that had gone to plan, Adam would’ve activated stage two of his prank, which involved sending his roommate’s girlfriend a video of her boyfriend’s death and seeing how she responds. This was Adam’s master plan until a tragedy derailed everything. Adam’s girlfriend, Cassandra, warned him not to do the prank. She told him there would be consequences. 


The men Adam hired, tortured and murdered his roommate right in front of him, while he was filming. It didn’t seem fake from Adam’s perspective, judging from his roommate’s blood curdling screams. The men beheaded Patrick with a Pulaski, which was a fireman axe. Blood sprayed out of Patrick’s truncated neck. It splattered on Adam’s face and his shirt. Adam filmed everything. He filmed the gang of men tying up his roommate with a rawhide rope and throwing him into the trunk of his car. He filmed them as they carried his roommate into an abandoned house and chained him to a basement floor. 


Everything looked horrifyingly real. From breaking his roommate’s arms to cutting off his fingers and toes, one by one. Adam filmed it all. And when he told the men to stop, they continued. He wanted to stop the prank because it looked too damn real. He thought the men were former special effects engineers, but he knew something was wrong when he saw a neo-nazi tattoo on one man’s arm. The man quickly tried to roll down his sleeve when he saw that Adam had noticed the body paint. 


Things escalated when Adam told another man not to remove the blindfold on his roommate, and the man ignored him. Adam’s stomach shuddered when the man took a screwdriver, embedding it into his roommate’s eyeball. 


“What the hell, man?! That wasn’t part of the prank!!” Adam remembered shouting to the man. The man disregarded Adam’s rebuke as he continued to purée Patrick’s eyeballs. A voice inside Adam told him to stop filming. It told him that these men he paid were really torturing his roommate and that he needed to call 911. But Adam ignored the voice, labeling it as obscure paranoia. 


After filming a real beheading in the basement of a dilapidated house, Adam hit the panic button. When Adam saw that his college buddy couldn’t be saved, he tried to make a break for it and was halted when one man pulled out a gun.


Adam didn’t think. He knew that if he thought about dying, his body would freeze. Adam had to act, and he used the self-defense moves he learned in his martial arts classes. It helped that the man was standing close enough for Adam to grab the gun. 


Adam disarmed the man before chopping him across the neck with the edge of his hand. He flipped the man on his back and looked to see the other men reaching for their guns. Adam made a break for it again. He ran up the basement stairs, ducking when he heard what sounded like gunfire cracking through the air behind him. In his panic, Adam mistakenly sent the video of Patrick’s recorded death to his girlfriend. He sent a text along with the video telling Patrick’s girlfriend that he was sorry and that he tried to stop the men from killing her boyfriend.  


Panic will make you do foolish things. Adam had to learn that the hard way. The snowball effect of mayhem came rolling down on Adam.


Adam’s girlfriend left him. His roommate’s girlfriend, Michelle, committed suicide a few weeks after her boyfriend’s death. She recorded herself drowning in a lake. The police recovered her body and Michelle’s father blamed Adam for the death of his daughter. 


Michelle’s father, Wesley, was a man you did not want to cross. He was a mountainous man with a military past. He owned lots of guns, and his favorite hobby was hunting. 


Adam wanted to go to the police, but he received a threatening phone call from Michelle’s father. He found out the hard way that a wrathful man abducted his little sister, Emily, and was told not to tell the police. Adam knew it was Michelle’s father. The man wanted to meet with Adam at a secluded location, and he was using Adam’s little sister as bait. 


At first, Adam didn’t want to believe that someone had kidnapped his little sister. He had to be forced to believe it when Michelle’s father put the sobbing little girl on the phone for a hot second. 


Adam told his mother that he would pick his little sister up that day. When his mother called him to find out if everything went well, he had no choice but to lie. He told his mother he had picked Emily up from school and was taking her to Chuck E. Cheese. Adam couldn't tell his mother that a burly man wearing a baseball cap came into the classroom and took his sister away, claiming to be the child’s father. Telling the truth was not an option.


Adam received the threatening phone call from Michelle’s father after he left the school.


“An eye for an eye, son. You killed my daughter, so I want you to experience how it feels to lose something precious,” A thunderous voice followed and those penetrating words erupted from Adam’s phone. He almost crashed his car when Wesley put his little sister on the phone. 


“Emily, I’m coming, sweetie. Just do what the man says, okay?” Adam almost lost it when his little sister told him that a gun was being pressed against her forehead. It started as one little prank and now Adam couldn’t believe that he had to beg a man not to shoot a 7-year-old girl over the phone. 


Michelle’s father told Adam that he had ten minutes to meet him at the secluded location. Adam cried after the rumbling voice told him not to contact the authorities or else. 


Adam’s self-defense moves couldn’t save him now. He was down on his knees in the middle of the woods, face to face with Michelle’s father and a loaded revolver. The good part was that Adam had his sister in his arms. The little girl sat in the dirt with her arms wrapped around her big brother’s neck. 


Adam turned his sister’s head away as he looked up at Michelle’s father and saw frigid darkness in the man's eyes. Adam saw he could not reason with the man. There was no point in trying. The young man prayed to God, knowing that he and his little sister were going to be killed. Adam cradled his sister. He held the little girl’s tear-soaked face against his cheek while closing his eyes.


“I’m sorry, Bunny. This is all your brother’s fault,” Adam whispered in his little sister’s ear, causing the child to squeeze her arms tighter around him. 


This was it. It was over, or so Adam thought. He thought his outrageous pranks had caught up with him. He knew he’d go to hell for getting his little sister killed. If he hadn’t pranked his roommate’s girlfriend, he’d be taking Emily to Chuck E. Cheese. But he had to deal with the guilt of cutting his baby sister’s life short. 


Adam swore it was over. He thought he and his sister were going to die. But when he heard crunching leaves coming from every direction, he opened his eyes to see something that almost made his heart stop. Adam lifted his eyes to see his roommate, Patrick, standing over him with his massive tattooed arms folded, wearing his typical black muscle shirt and denim jeans.


More people emerged from behind the trees. Adam saw Michelle slowly walking up to her father with an unforgettable smirk on her face. Adam saw his mother appear from behind a tree. She approached her son while giggling. The woman reached down, stroking her son across his chin while giving him a look of pity. 


Adam’s little sister stood up, wrapping her arms around her mom, and they both stood over Adam, smiling down at his shocked expression. Even Cassandra, Adam’s ex-girlfriend, he thought, appeared in front of him. She kneeled in front of Adam, kissing him while also choking up a soft laugh.


When Adam saw the men he paid to kidnap his roommate appear, he knew he was the one being pranked. Adam’s mouth fell to his knees after he watched his roommate high-five each of the men while chuckling like a naughty schoolboy. Adam even saw people step from behind trees wearing police uniforms. Somehow, he knew these people were actors.


Patrick dethroned Adam as the king of ultimate pranks. His roommate took the crown and the throne away from him. Patrick mocked Adam.


“April Fool’s, asshole. You thought you were pranking me, but you were my bitch the whole time,” Patrick laughed in Adam’s face before tossing a prosthetic severed head at Adam, which landed in his lap. 


Adam looked down at the fake head of his roommate, which looked so real that it scared him. A fire arose in Adam when he realized his roommate brought everyone in on the prank, including his little sister. He wanted to say something, and the only thing that came out of his mouth was — “Son of a bitch!!”



April 03, 2021 01:27

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8 comments

Daniel R. Hayes
06:53 Apr 03, 2021

Hi Phyllis, this was masterful story telling at it's finest! From beginning to end I was hooked. Talk about being king of pranks...wow! My favorite line was: "April Fool’s, asshole. You thought you were pranking me, but you were my bitch the whole time" - I was like, Oh Hell Yeah! :) True greatness runs in your family! Welcome to Reedsy, and thank you so much for sharing this story, I loved it :)

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Onyxx Moon
21:16 Apr 03, 2021

Thanks so much! I can truly say I'm a fan of yours as well, LOVE YOUR HOT HEAD SERIES!

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Daniel R. Hayes
21:38 Apr 03, 2021

Thank you Phyllis :) I'm so glad that you like the Hot Head series! You'll be glad to know that I plan on writing the fourth installment this week, it will be called Hot Head Unleashed ;)

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Onyxx Moon
00:07 Apr 04, 2021

Oh I can’t wait! I know my son is going to do a good job narrating it!

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Daniel R. Hayes
18:19 Apr 05, 2021

Hi Phyllis, just wanted to let you know that I finished Hot Head Unleashed. I hope you like it :)

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Skyler Woods
02:25 Apr 03, 2021

Way da go mom!

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Onyxx Moon
02:26 Apr 03, 2021

Thanks Honey! 😆🥰

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Onyxx Moon
02:20 Apr 03, 2021

This is my first story in this genre, so be gentle y'all. My son helped me out. Bless his heart. 💗

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